Costa Rica’s Economy

Located in Central America with a 51.100 km2 territory and a small 5.180.000 population, we have Costa Rica. A tiny country that’s holding on for dear life to progress and development, its main roadblock is money.

Costa Rica’s GDP in 2021 ranked in 65th place, showing a low life level, this added to the fact that it has one of the lowest minimum wages in the whole wide world. In all these statistics, the most important thing is that in Human Development statistics it is proven that Costa Rica is a country that keeps moving forward towards the challenges of progress. 

Globally, Costa Rica still ranks low but the previous and current governments have made improvements in the country’s economy. For example, exportations ranked their highest in history and in march 2021 the country collected taxes from entities and people that were tax evading before. 

Exportations from Costa Rica are mostly for bananas, coffee, sugar, cocoa, pineapple, mini vegetables and flowers. But also, there are companies offering multi language customer service and the country exports those services too. More and more companies are basing their industries in Costa Rica to assemble medical equipment, electronic components and microtechnologies. 

Overall, Costa Rica had economic growth of 7.6% in 2021. After the pandemic, tourism (the most important economic activity in the country)  is recovering slowly but surely and that reactivates every other economic activity. 

Besides, Costa Rica is the first country in the world to reverse deforestation. Its Green Brand focused to attract tourism and foreign investors have worked great.

Inflation due to covid-19 has been rough with the market conditions, unemployment and poverty increased in those uncertain times and even if the country has recovered, people haven’t. Poverty could be reduced with the government’s help but there are no resources to share. However, by re-establishing small businesses that had to close due to the pandemic, jobs could be provided and that’s what’s more important right now to turn around the population´s issues. 

On the other hand, Costa Rica has a lot of advantages. No army, free public education and health services, politics to benefit foreign investments and companies,natural beauties and more. For example, the country produces 90% of renewable energies, and doesn´t produce carbon.

There is still hope: With regulations to prevent corruption, improvement of the management of the tax funds, strict fiscal rules,  unity between government´s entities, environmental sustainability, investment in improvements, growth, inclusion of everybody (even the most vulnerable communities) and more, Costa Rica has the opportunity to be an amazing country with riches and to be attractive for foreign investments.